Survey: This is what Americans think the minimum wage should be

While minimum wage has been a hotly debated subject for years, including during the most recent presidential election, a new survey suggests that Americans do generally agree on one thing: The minimum wage should be raised.

CreditLoan, an online loan and personal finance company, surveyed 2,669 Americans to gauge their opinion and knowledge of the minimum wage.

The survey revealed that residents in every state said that the minimum wage in their state should be higher than the level at which it's currently set.

Additionally, those surveyed felt, on average, the federal minimum wage should be $11.56 per hour — $4.31 more than the current, federal minimum wage of $7.25.

At that rate, working for minimum wage 40 hours a week for 52 weeks would total $24,044 a year.

Within more specific demographics, however, those surveyed had answers that varied greatly. People who made less than $10,000 annually felt that $12.03 was the ideal minimum wage, while those making between $150,000 to $199,999 said $10.50 should suffice.

Meanwhile, self-identified Democrats answered, on average, that their ideal minimum wage is $12.71, while those who identified as Republicans said that the ideal is $10.19.

Residents in different states had differing opinions too. Currently, in Wyoming, the minimum wage is $5.15, but on average, survey respondents in that state said an ideal minimum wage double that, at $10.88. Georgia yielded a similar result: while that state has a current minimum wage of $5.15, survey respondents from Georgia, on average, said $10.71 is the ideal minimum wage. Montana residents seem fairly content with the minimum wage in their state, with an average, ideal minimum wage of $8.85, only 55 cents higher than its actual minimum wage of $8.30.

CreditLoan also found that in general, Americans surveyed are pretty misinformed on current minimum wage requirements. Only 35.5 percent of respondents correctly identified the federal minimum wage as $7.25 per hour, with the average guess being $8.09.

Respondents in almost every state were just as uninformed about their own state's minimum wage requirements. Residents in Georgia fared the worst — while their state minimum wage is set at $5.15 per hour, residents' average guess was $7.39.

The federal minimum wage hasn't been raised since 2009, according to the Economic Policy Institute, but many states and localities have passed their own legislation to raise their own minimum wage requirements, and a slew of states have upcoming minimum wage increases slated to roll out.

Currently, there are seven states, according to the institute, that have no minimum wage law or a minimum wage that is below the federal minimum wage (so the federal minimum of $7.25 applies in those states). However, there are 29 states (along with Washington, D.C.) that have a minimum wage higher than the federal minimum wage.

Since the federal minimum wage is not fixed to inflation, the buying power of a minimum wage paycheck has been dramatically falling. In 1968, the statutory minimum wage of $2 an hour was worth around $10.90 an hour in 2017 dollars, CNBC previously reported.

CreditLoan collected survey respondents from 2,669 Americans from all 50 states using Amazon's Mechanical Turk, as well as Reddit postings in city and state subreddits, and sought survey respondents using Facebook advertisements for states with inadequate numbers of Mturk and Reddit responses. All states had at least 34 respondents.